How to Make Materials Accessible

Below is an overview of resources at NDSU that can be used to make materials accessible.

Overview

This page provides an overview of resources available in the Instructional Design Center (IDC) to help you use technology effectively in designing accessible content. 

The following checklist provides recommendations that benefit everyone regardless of their ability, to access and interact with the materials. Accessibility Checklist to follow when checking digital content.

Getting Started

This article introduces some basic considerations to help in creating accessible digital content. Additional resources include:

Best Practices

  • Creating accessible digital content ensures it is available and usable by all users, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. To achieve this think about accessibility before, during, and ending your creation of all digital content. Review and fix accessibility issues before sharing the content with others.
  • Begin by providing headings in documents, alternative text for images, descriptive links for URLs, formatting tables, including captions for videos, providing transcripts for audio, reviewing color contrast and much more.

Learn More/How To's

NDSU provides faculty, staff, and students with license copies of Microsoft 365 Apps (Word, PowerPoint, etc.) and Google Workspace.  The IDC lab has computers with Acrobat Pro software for the NDSU community to use.  

Adobe Acrobat 

Google Workspace (Docs, Sheets, Slides) 

FAQs

Use Cases

  • Designing and developing digital course content  
  • Creating departmental documents and resources  
  • Ensuring closed captioning is available and text transcripts for virtual meeting attendees

Universal Design/Accessibility

  • Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and digital accessibility both seek to increase access to educational digital content and reduce barriers for students and everyone. Using UDL guidelines and introducing inclusive teaching strategies in your courses sends a welcoming message that all are included.
    • CAST Universal Design for Leaning resources
    • UDL Guidelines Guidelines 3.0 tool to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people.

Help, consultation, training

IT Service Center

Intended Audience

  • Faculty
  • Staff
  • Students

Using this service

Availability

24/7/365 [*Standard outages]

Cost

University-funded: no charge.

Requirements

Must be a campus-supported product


Keywords:
accessibility, universal design for learning, udl, teaching strategies, instructional design, ally, Anthology Ally, UDL, 
Doc ID:
147841
Owned by:
Sharley K. in NDSU IT Knowledge Base
Created:
2025-01-28
Updated:
2025-03-10
Sites:
NDSU IT Knowledge Base